


Impressions of falling, illusions of flying

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Minor Character Death, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 14:31:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky and Steve are fifteen when monsters emerge out of the ocean. It takes them some time to answer the 'Now, what?' question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impressions of falling, illusions of flying

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the effect of my thoughts on what would Bucky and Steve be like in world presented in Pacific Rim, provoked by various posts on tumblr and one anon in Emily buckeebarnes' inbox. 
> 
> This is an alternate universe, one where it is not Mako and Raleigh who save the world. Hence, they may appear but be different people than those portrayed in the movie. So are other characters from Pacific Rim.
> 
> There's quite a bite of OCs although no one of them plays the major part. Rebecca, Bucky's sister known from comics, makes an appearance but I don't think it is necessary to be familiar with her before reading, so don't fret. 
> 
> Also, I want to make clear that it is a story about teenagers before they become heroes. It isn't 'How Bucky and Steve saved the world' thing, sorry. 
> 
> Oh, and 'impressions' covers quite well what you've got here. Feel warned?
> 
> Finally, I must say I am not a native speaker and I have not found a beta, therefore there may be mistakes. 
> 
> If you're still here, I'm glad and hope you'll enjoy the read.

Bucky and Steve are fifteen when monsters emerge out of the ocean. They are fifteen and they laugh too loud in the cinema; they eat ice cream in November; they almost puke after rollercoaster; they sing together all the worst songs not even trying to pretend to sing them well and they don’t believe in monsters, not really.

Monsters emerge out of the ocean and it is suddenly difficult to believe in anything else.

.

Bucky’s father leaves for eight sunny, terrible days. Rebecca cries every evening and Bucky can’t hold her enough.

.

It’s summer and Bucky and Steve are fifteen. Stupid is unavoidable, Bucky figures, as he finishes another beer.

“One to humanity, zero to creepers from the outer space” he mutters. He doesn’t know if Steve laughs. Fireworks are too loud.

.

 _Normal is such a funny word_ , Bucky thinks. _It means nothing_. Rebecca’s hand is slightly bigger; sun is smaller; father walks in the same way, away.

“I wish I could do something” Steve says, gazing through the window. Silence remains until the break ends.

.

Nobody does anything. Kaiju come and come and come and there’s no words to describe the damage that is being done. Speakers are speechless, politicians hopeless. _Well, the latter one isn’t exactly news_ , Bucky states and while Steve lets out a sigh, he chuckles.

.

“ _Ja-e-ger_ ” Rebecca reads from Steve’s newspaper, kicking Bucky’s leg as she turns to read more. “What is a Jaeger?” she asks.

“Nothing” Bucky replies as Steve says: “Future.”

.

It’s the eighth time this week Bucky finds Steve bruised. His lip is cut and blood stained the collars of his shirt.

“What’s going on? It’s like you were walking on these dicks on purpose” Bucky says, not calm at all. Steve shrugs.

“I guess I’m a bit out of my mind these days.”

They walk home and Bucky pretends not to see the way Steve’s gaze lingers on a poster of Uncle Sam telling everyone to get into the giant robot.

.

Alright, they _do_ work. #Jagers4Lyfe trends on twitter; robots are in every movie now; somebody sings _I have my Kaiju for a breakfast, I have my-copilot for a dinner_ , feat. Pitbull. Rebecca reads comics about people who instead of spandex wear tones of metal.

Price? Who cares, we won.

.

Steve still reads depressing books, though. There are men with guns on the covers and indefinite endings on the last pages. Maybe they are no endings, maybe they are just mute to-be-continueds. Which is kind of shitty thought to be left as the last one, Bucky thinks. _Some positivity, anyone?_

.

Bucky’s father is back and they have a chocolate cake, straight out from Ms Roger’s oven. Rebecca asks him about the Kaiju, “Is that truth they have two heads, papa? And that they shoot fire from their eyes?”

Father smiles. He doesn’t when he sees a Kaiju toy on Rebecca’s desk.

“Timmy borrowed it to me” she says. Next day, Timmy gets his toy back.

.

Ms Rogers opens the door with a tight smile that looks like a scar on her delicate round face. A lying angel could look as she does now.

“Steve is watching news.”

Bucky sees him, fists on knees and titled head, listening Jaidev Tata who in serious voice explains what the Jaeger Academy is. “It creates equal opportunities for people of all backgrounds to contribute to fight for our planet”, he says and Bucky can’t even think of a funny joke about pathos and traumas of not getting into drama schools.

Steve smiles, to himself.

.

When Steve is looking for those last fifty cents he needs to get them tickets for _Avatar 4_ (Neytiri dies and Jake Sully comes back only to find Earth run by aliens, the bad kind. For explanation, even Cameron has been hit by the All-Money-Go-For-Robots Crisis) and his membership card from gym falls out of his wallet, Bucky doesn’t comment on it. He simply picks it from the floor and gives to Steve when he’s done with paying.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

.

So Steve wants to be a tough guy now. Somehow, he didn’t use to mind it is Bucky who does the fighting. Why does he now is not a question Bucky tries to find an answer to.

.

Rebecca is Snow White for Halloween. Steve is strange. Bucky is Bucky and he’s damn sure he has the hardest job of them all.

.

Rogers’ kitchen is just enough for all of them, they find out. Rebecca sings carols so loudly they can’t hear the radio, so Steve turns it off, at last.

.

“Happy New Year, papa” Rebecca says quietly to phone and sniffs. Bucky holds her hand and Steve holds Bucky’s. She finally falls asleep on their laps, squeezing her sparkling dress. Her hand falls, knocking a glass down. So, there’s a puddle of cheap champagne somewhere around  their foot now. They don’t care.

Steve’s eyes are very bright. _He’s such a failure_ , Bucky thinks.

“I have an idea” Steve says. Fireworks are blasting, coloring his face so he seems to be a saint from sainted glass. “I have a great idea and I need you to hear it.”

“Sure” Bucky says. “Here, champagne. More style, you know.”

“Thank you, Bucky” Steve says and tries to hug him with one hand. It doesn’t work, so he empties the glass he has in another one. Then, his head lands on Bucky’s shoulder. It’s all good, New Year’s sweet and glittering taste on Bucky’s tongue.

He doesn’t mind the _to be continued_ he doesn’t hear.

.

This is an after-after-party and Bucky doesn’t quite remember how he’s gotten here. He stands or dances, who cares, to the sound of really weird electro music somebody on a bus had as a tune, and watches people make out everywhere. Is it him or is it Steve or maybe he’s not drunk enough, but did they use to do that much?

“What am I witnessing even?!” he laughs. Girl next to him takes a big sip of a very purple drink that doesn’t go at all with her very red hair and shouts back:

“Fin de siècle!”

Bucky can’t remember what fenh duh secl was, but it sounds pretty cool. Between the sloppy kisses tasting disgustingly sweet cocktail and raspberry lipstick, he learns girl’s name’s Gin.

.

Sometimes, when it’s really late, and Bucky hasn’t heard from his father for a long time, and Steve has been thinking whole day, Bucky thinks, too. It’s usually all memories. He tries to recall, how was it before he met Steve or how his father was his dad, or how his mom used to smell. And he remembers things, like that time when he and Steve went skating and ice cracked and Bucky almost died.

At those thinking-nights, Bucky has nightmares. He dreams of falling into freezing, black water and no tiny stubborn hands to raise him up.

.

Maybe Steve’s taller than he used to be and maybe his bones don’t stick out now so dramatically as they did, but he still gets flu every month.

“You look like you were dying” Bucky tells him then, while sitting on his legs and reading comics to him (“Geez, Steve, you can imagine the pictures, can’t you?”) because there’s no way he’s going to make Steve listen to one of his bricks of tears, pain and protagonists dying on a thirtieth page of six hundred.

Steve falls asleep after two issues and Bucky gets up. He picks up the current brick. This time it’s Steinbeck. _You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff_ , he reads and his snort is cut in a half when he sees the bookmark. With trembling hands Bucky spreads the paper. He finds himself staring at partly filled application to the Jaeger Academy. At the bottom of it, a small line stands: _talk to Bucky_.

He puts it back in a perfect order and goes out. Somewhere, away from the war and Steve’s damn stupid ideas.

.

Another nightmare: Steve falls in a burning Jaeger. Bucky is unable to do anything.

.

There is no chocolate, Bucky realizes. He looks around and sees there’s no oranges too, no lemons, no tangerines. Little of coffee. And everything, besides those novels in screaming pink covers which you can always buy for fifty cents, is expensive.

Cashier, bored Latin in mid-twenties with dreadlocks and t-shirt saying _make love not robots_ , catches his glance and explains:

“We’re havin’ here an apocalypse, kid.”

.

“You draw a lot” Bucky states, his gaze following grey-silver line of pencil, a shape of Steve’s mother.

“I always do.”

Bucky’s father can’t draw. He engraves images of Bucky and Rebecca in his head, probably, when he gives them those piercing glances before he leaves to be a soldier.

.

Bucky doesn’t notice the exact moment when Rebecca learns, so he’s as surprised as his father is when they hear at the table:

“Dad, is that the end of the world?”

Maybe that’s because she has less clothes than she used to have, or maybe because there are less movies about princesses released each year.

“No, Becky” Father says in his special voice Bucky knows by heart (“ _No, Bucky, mom’s fine. No Bucky, I’m good. No Bucky, I’ll be back soon_ ”). “It’s a bit of trouble we’ll deal with, like we always do.”

Rebecca has learned some things, but skepticism wasn’t one of them. She believes and doesn’t ask about the price.

Who cares, we will win.

.

Gin breaks up with him few days after finals. She’s cool about it, doesn’t let the bitterness eat her mind. Her very red hair Bucky liked to play with so much are cut, and her lipstick is darker than he thinks it was.

“I’m fucking scared Jim and I need to stop to be. I need time, space – I have to figure out things. Without help” she speaks quickly, playing with rings on her fingers.

“Kay, Gin. We’re friends or something else?”

Gin shrugs.

“Guess we’ll see. Right? Improvisation is what we’re the best at.”

She kisses him goodbye, chaste and not-Gin-y-at-all. Or maybe it is Gin-y, and he just can’t tell. People change. Probably even more when they think they may die tomorrow.

“Love you”  he says as she goes.

“No, you don’t” her laugh sounds like a sob.

.

Steve knows because he’s a damn telepath or something. They go to cinema and there are only war movies on, so they leave even more depressed. At least, Bucky does. Steve looks inspired.

Bucky has this secret – he is a damn telepath, too, and hears all that Steve doesn’t say. He’s glad for that.

.

“You know, I can’t remember the last time you lost a fight.”

“Well, I certainly don’t miss it. Do you?”

“No-not really.”

Steve laughs and it’s only a while before Bucky follows.

.

Bucky goes to a party in the first week of June, in the second, in the third. Inara tells him in a grave voice she’s a kite; Adam jokes about the way A tops B and all of conclusions it may lead to; Niamh is afraid of storms.

Steve has his running routine. Bucky used to ran with him but he simply can’t catch up these days. How could he, letting all this fear slow him while Steve reforges it into wings?

.

This time, it’s Tokyo. Ryoko Shuichi’s eyeliner pours down with tears, as she pronounces the number of dead. Among them, there is a brilliant pilot Stacker Pentecost. Before Ryoko breaks completely, there’s a cut to Pentecost’s body. There are white candles and yellow flowers all around it. A little girl comes in with her mum and puts a teddy-bear in pilot’s big hand.

Bucky throws a pilot. He misses a screen and so it falls into pieces on the floor. Rebecca stands still on a threshold.

.

Ms Rogers has bags under eyes, her hair is more grey than cotton-yellow Bucky remembered it to be. Mr Rogers is out. Steve? Oh, he’s in his room, again. Kitchen, as Bucky crosses it, has a smell of silence instead of chocolate cake.

Steve draws. Bucky sneaks up to him and when he’s just behind his back, he whispers to his ear: “You never draw me.”

“I don’t have to” Steve answers, his pencil not shivering even a little bit. Usual, it is, but Bucky still doesn’t give up on hope of scaring him one day. _You’ll see_ , he thinks, _one day you won’t see me coming_. Out loud, he asks only:

“Oh, and why is that? Am I unworthy of being a subject of your art?”

Steve actually considers it for a while a serious question. _Fool_. Bucky’s unsure whom he’s calling this.

.

“Bucky” Steve says when they’re done laughing about nothing (it’s not a metaphor, there’s just nothing to laugh about). “I’m going to apply to Jaeger Academy.”

 _Nonononono_.

“What about school?” There’s still one year to go. There’s this one year more Bucky was supposed to have.

“I can’t stand it, Buck” Steve says. His words are heavy; echo explodes in Bucky’s ears. “Sitting there, doing nothing… It kills me.”

“Kaiju kill. In a deadlier sense.”

Steve gives Bucky a wide-eyed glance.

“I’d rather die fighting for something than live for nothing.” Bucky doesn’t ask if he couldn’t waste his time for something, too. “Wouldn’t you?”

“I’m pretty fond of living, as shitty as it is” Bucky guesses he says it because he’s angry rather than scared. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if it was worth the disappointment in Steve’s eyes. “Not all of us are heroes.” _Not all of us have wings._

“You shouldn’t think so little of yourself.”

“You shouldn’t be such a delusional idealist.”

Steve blinks. Then, slowly, he nods.

“I – I’m sorry-“ Bucky starts.

“No, don’t be. I shouldn’t have expected-“

“What?”

“Nothing. Anything.”

.

Bucky spends 24 hours without Steve, and then some more. It’s the longest he’s ever been with him like that, ever. It feels strange. Numb, sort of.

He goes to the pool with Rebecca. Water is cold and Bucky drowns in it, a bit.

.

Steve opens the door.

“I was just going to-“ he says.

“Yeah, I was first” Bucky does his best to smile.

“So-“

“-we are-“

“-fine?”

“Guess we are” Bucky shrugs.

.

Bucky goes to museum with Steve. They stare into deep emptiness of a dinosaur’s eyeholes. Neither of them mentions the theory about dinosaurs dying because of previous Kaiju attack.

Steve goes to party with Bucky. Music is deafening and people are wild. Neither of them mentions the way Niamh kisses Bucky’s cheek or the sparkle of wounds on her forearms shining in the flashing lights.

.

But Steve is Steve, so before he’s going to take him by surprise again, Bucky asks:

“Why?”

It’s irrelevant to anything they’ve been talking about during those last few hours. Of course, Steve just gets it.

“Because it feels right, you know?” Bucky knows. “And before I die, I will make a change. Isn’t that what life is for? Making a change?”

“If we lose, it won’t matter. If we win –“ He feels terrible, but continues: “With some time, it won’t matter, too. What’s such change worth?”

“It will matter now and that’s all we have” Steve answers. _So much pathos_ , Bucky thinks and says:

“Yeah, whatever. What about this part with having someone in your head, though? Bonding with someone – forever? Kind of a responsibility, don’t you think?”

Steve looks down.

“I thought - it’s stupid, but I thought it’d be you.”

“Me.”

“We’d be good at it.” This tiny _would_ hurts. “Never mind.”

.

Rebecca is twelve. Bucky is awful at being her parents; he probably does the average for brotherhood. _B- would be it_ , he thinks. She’s used to loneliness too much and she doesn’t even care now. She rarely speaks, mostly watches TV and reads some magazines, or listens to anthems of glitter and balloons on her IPod. But one night, Bucky caught her stabbing her diary angrily with a pen, ink all over her fingers – they grew so long. She was crying and Bucky hugged her, to show her that he is, _here_. He wished he could say something that would make okay that mom’s dead and father’s away and there are monsters in her closet and you can’t do a one fucking thing about it. He had no idea what words would make it right.

Rebecca is twelve and carries unfair amount of shit in her mind. She didn’t say a word but cried.

.

Bucky sees Gina kissing some girl in heavy boots and dustcoat under an umbrella. So he heard she started taking karate or something, but he didn’t realize it included kissing. Not that he minds – she was right when she said he didn’t love her. He loved what it could be between them two. Or maybe not even that.

Inara eats rainbow, or that’s what she thinks she does. Adam ran away with some Nguyen to be pirates, or that’s what his twitter says. Niamh was so scared of storms she hid in the net of silver scars and that’s what the obituary doesn’t say.

Sometimes, Bucky is sure he’s unable to form any kind of relationship with anyone. Good thing he met Steve before he realized that.

.

They spend three days on the beach. Just Bucky, Rebecca and father. Of course, it rains. They walk along the sea, on that fragment of sand that is neither dry nor wet. Grey sea flows around their ankles and silence is enough to fill the space between waves and clouds.

.

He dies week later, fighting in the suburbs of Los Angeles.

.

Bucky and Rebecca lay in his bed.

Steve puts sandwiches on the floor and two glasses full of orange juice at the bedside table.

.

But they don’t cry. _How you cry about something you don’t believe in?_

.

On a fourth day, soldiers come. They say Rebecca will go to boarding school.

“He had been saving money for it, every month.”

Bucky gets some money and flowers. He throws flowers into the bin and struggles not to do the very same with money.

.

Ms and Mr Rogers come to be sympathetic. Bucky doesn’t blame Steve for that. Rebecca doesn’t say a word. At night, she opens a window and yells. Someone yells back. New York is full of hurting people. _Always._

.

Funeral is long.

“Malcolm was a good soldier” says the old colonel whom Bucky remembers kissing his mother hand and giving him cookies under the table when father said Bucky had enough. “But first and foremost – he was a good man.”

It’s a good speech, too. Honest. Short. People cry. Bucky doesn’t. Rebecca and he hold hands, mostly because they got used to it over those few days.

.

The wake takes forever.

.

Bucky wonders how long will it take him to shake off the odor of chrysanthemums.

.

On the last day of summer, they go to the hairdresser. Rebecca has her hair dyed neon blue and Bucky pays for it. They drink beer. There are fireworks coloring sky above them. New York is full of happiness. _Always, probably._

.

**They sent me to school counselor. She asked me about stuff and childhood. I told her you ate my hamster. She’s mad now.**

**_I love you._ **

**Shut up, weirdo, it isn’t Folgers.**

**_You’re too young to know about Folgers. I am concerned._ **

**I’m too young for most of me, so suck it.**

.

One late morning – or is it afternoon? When you don’t go to school it’s hard to keep track on all the time you’re wasting – Bucky finds in his inbox an e-mail from one prof. Erskine. Before he manages to finish it, Steve calls.

“We’re in-“

“Just for the tests.”

“Still! _We’re in_ , Buck. We’re going to-“

“Save the world, yeah. Terrific, but I’d like to have breakfast first.”

Fifteen minutes of hunger later, Steve comes in with doughnuts and coffee. Bucky doesn’t think about what they make them of now, nor how much they cost. Steve laughs about pink frosting in the corner of Bucky’s mouth, about clouds and how slow they are, about everything. Bucky smiles because of all this laughing. How could he not?

.

Steve goes into the room first, leaving Bucky to write the test checking if he isn’t some psycho maniac, or something. He’s like ninety percent sure he’s going to fail it. _Draw yourself_ , Bucky reads silently, _is this even for real?_ Steve will be in seventh heaven, damn him and his otherworldly hands.

One extremely unproductive hour later, they switch. Steve is handed few sheets of paper and Bucky goes into Erskine’s study.

“You’ll do great” Steve mouths to him.

“Don’t I always?” Bucky mouths back with a nod.

.

Bucky fucked up. _Typical._ (“Would you like to tell me about your family?” “Not really.” “You’ve been in detention in school, numerous times, for beating up your classmates.” “They beat up someone else first.” “You do realize vengeance is not a motivation we’d like to see in pilots?” “Still a motivation, isn’t it?” “Do you want to kill Kaiju?” “I – I don’t know. Doesn’t everybody?”)

“One question more, Mr Barnes” Erskine says. “Say, if we don’t accept your application… What are you going to do?”

“Probably get drunk with people I don’t know.” Erskine’s not even angry, nor disappointed. It’s like he knew Bucky would fail since the second he passed the threshold. It makes him feel rather bitter, if anyone cared. “Prof I – I get that I am kind of the worst candidate-“

“You’ll be informed about your score in one week, Mr Barnes” Erskine cuts him.

“Yeah, I know but this is – I mean, don’t take me in if you don’t want to, whatever, it doesn’t change anything. But Steve – he’s different. He really cares about people and sh- and stuff, and he’s – he’s a little guy and maybe quite a nerd, but he’s the biggest damn hero I’ve ever met and if you aren’t aware of that, you’re an idiot. With all due respect.”

Bucky gets out before Erskine has a chance to protest. Yeah, okay, he can’t change the world, he’s just Bucky – but he change just a little bit, so Steve gets the chance to make all differences he wants.

.

Last part of the test is a combat between them. To check their drift compatibility, they hear. Weapon of their choice. (“Uh, fists?”) It goes surprisingly well. Their examiner, black woman with a face of Sphinx smiles slightly at the end. Bucky may be nuts and vengeance and all that jazz (he’d totally be _jazz_ , with wild moans of saxophones and nerves and depression. But Steve? Oh, he’d probably be a Chopin, or something), but you can’t say Bucky doesn’t get Steve. Fight is a dialogue, Sphinx-woman said, and they have always been able to finish each other’s sentences.

.

Rebecca calls.

“And Abe, I told you about her, Abigail, right? She rocks, she has totally the best taste in music. We listen to her CDs sometimes, us two and Marie – I thought she’s a freak, but she’s cool. Ish.”

“And how’s Ms Bragaglia situation? Is your Italian still _imperfecto_?”

“It’s _imperfetto_ and don’t even remind me. She’s terrible, but since it’s an exception, I manage.”

“Becky-“ he doesn’t know when he started calling her that or why. Someone had to, right? “Becky, I miss you like hell.”

“Come on, we’ll see each other soon. My birthday, remember? We can go to that rollercoaster Steve puked on. It must be awesome-“ her voice breaks a little.

“It will be.”

Or maybe it won’t be at all, if he goes to war. But she’s happy, isn’t she? She doesn’t need him.

.

It’s not like in the movies, not really. No cheap song in the background, no very special light effects, nor anything like that. There’s just a street in the morning with one drunk man singing softly to the tree and a boy with acne holding bunch of newspapers. There’s just a street in the morning with him and Steve going to the war. Their clothes are still bit wet from Ms Rogers’ tears.

.

**I hate you. Don’t die.**

“Becky-“

“Fuck off.”

“You shouldn’t-“

“And you shouldn’t leave me like that!”

“I’m not- I’m not leaving.”

“Yes, you are!”

“But I’ll be back.”

Don’t make promises you cannot keep, isn’t that from some superhero movie? Good sign, he’s becoming one.

“I’ll kill you if you die.”

“I love you, too.”

.

Alaska is grey rain in lungs and green wind in ears, and quiet squelch when they step into the puddle on their way to Academy. Steve doesn’t say anything but Bucky still feels obliged to state that Academy’s just a box of beton and glass, geez.

.

Bucky does just fine at Engineering - he always was the one to fix Steve’s netbooks. Seriously, this guy had problem with switching a light bulb, sometimes. Steve beats him completely at Tactics, though. With fighting classes, it is a more complicated matter. They are more coordinated than most of other students – only those creepy codependent albino twins from Russia are more in sync, but they’re creepy so Bucky isn’t going to care. And then, there is Psych. And Bucky hates that.

“You need to learn control your emotions” says Ms Quintana as she thought repeating one thing over and over may actually change something. “It is not only about you, cadet Barnes. If you let them rule you, it will cause damage greater than you could possibly imagine, to you, to your co-pilot and to people you are supposed to protect.”

And one day, close to the test ending first eight-week part of their training, he feels as every bone in his body was fractured; as his thoughts broke free and flew away; and if not Steve – no, he doesn’t go there. He replies:

“Yeah, and how do I do _that_?”

Ms Quintana smiles.

“Asking me this question is a first step.”

She probably writes ‘ _finally, progress_ ’ in this little notebook of hers.

.

Sometimes, when he leaves, Bucky sees other people waiting for Ms Quintana. Students who have worn out their smiles like him, or pilots, who have death in their eyes. One of them comes here with terrifying frequency, blond and tall, and as lively as a shadow.

.

They pass. Most of people do, it’s the drifting compatibility test that’s called the Sieve, but Bucky isn’t quite sure why he’s here, still, in spite of him being him.

“I told you, you shouldn’t think of yourself so little” Steve says to him above their equilibrated lunches full of all those healthy things Bucky doesn’t care about.

“And I told you, you shouldn’t think so big of everyone else.”

Steve doesn’t correct him. _Of course he doesn’t_.

.

One boy in their class, from Germany, has a hobby of counting intervals between Kaiju attacks. They’re lesser and happen more often, he says, but nobody wants to be sure what that means.

.

Bucky gets used to Ms Quintana. She seems to be more qualified than school counselor from his high school who had all books about self-help and aura of failure around him. Ms Quintana is inhumane, and maybe Bucky talks to her because it’s like talking to himself.

“You have great potential. If you avenged your insecurities – which is possible – you would be one of our greatest… And you would be happy” she tells him. He doesn’t believe her fully, but maybe halfly and that’s definitely a progress.

.

Steve is the most dedicated student, everyone is aware of this, but only Bucky knows that  he isn’t perfect at all, and sneaks up to watch reflection of New York in the stars, and that sometimes he cries, and sometimes he stays up all night and talks to Bucky about how he doesn’t always forget to be afraid.

These nights are long, but there are only few of them.

.

**So how is it, Mr Important Cadet?**

**Come on. Answer me.**

**What are you, sleeping?**

**_Sorry, thinking. You know, I think it’s good. Like, good. You?_ **

.

Nightmares don’t leave but it’s not like Bucky isn’t used to them. He doesn’t know what would he do if he had full eight hours of sleep. Probably freak out because of the weird.

Now it’s only different that when Bucky wakes up, he doesn’t drown in darkness, not alone, not anymore.

.

There’s a snowball fight, somewhere in the beginning of March. Bucky is throwing one at Steve and then – then he stops, because there he is, Steve Rogers, in too little blue coat with furiously red cheeks and ears and nose and everything, laughing at Bucky like he gave him a world for a present.

.

Ms Quintana asks questions sometimes and Bucky replies to some. He draws, a bit. Not as well as Steve, this guy is some damn da Vinci – or more like, Raphael, the one who drew dreamy cherubs, right?, but yeah, he does what he can.

“We need to have your mind at peace, so Cadet Rogers doesn’t get lost within battling thoughts, Barnes” says Ms Quintana.

“That’s almost poetry.”

“There’s much poetry in idea of fighting the strange by the union of two, don’t you think?”

 _The union of two_ , Bucky repeats later at night. It does sound beautiful.

.

Alaska is clear air, sharp with ice, and silence, without rumbling echoes of apocalypse. They prepare for a battle, but they possess tranquility neither of them could reach back in the city. Maybe because it’s so final. Now there’s nothing unsure, and when marching to the war, you have a direct destination; not at all like when you’re running away.

.

Two weeks before drifting compatibility test, Gin calls.

“Where are you? I heard – something so incredibly mad.” she says breathlessly.

“On Kodiak Island. Alaska” Bucky replies, trying not to sound too amused by her sudden interest.

“So – it’s true, then? That you and Rogers are in the fucking Jaeger Academy, training to be fucking Jaeger pilots to fight fucking Kaiju?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Gin – she laughs. Or cries, Bucky has always been lame at feeling her.

“You’re the heroic one now! Fuck me, Jim, but what the kind of world it is where _you_ are saving anyone?”

“The one we have, Gin, I’m afraid.”

.

Once, Bucky manages to scare Steve while he’s drawing. It’s a girl, dark braid flipped above her arm. It takes him a while to recall her name, but when he says it, _Peggy Carter_ , Steve breaks his pencil and blushes terribly.

“I- She has a fine bone structure, you know?”

Bucky pats him on his arm.

“Sure, Steve, whatever.”

.

The Sieve comes, eventually. Pairs of cadets let themselves be plugged to an inconspicuous machine, so their thoughts would melt. Stimulation of a drift. More real and dangerous than anything they’ve done already. _The union of a two_.

Russian twins come first and come out quickly, composed as always. German boy enters with his friend, quiet Iran girl. It takes more time for them to leave, and when they do, he is leaning on her and his nose bleeds. Peggy is third, Peggy and a petite blonde with tricks on her fingers and riddle in the corner of her mouth. That’s when screaming starts.

.

Steve and Bucky are next to last and that’s Steve’s fault because he’s the one to draw the number. Ms Quintana is there, telling them to breathe slowly and something else, and Bucky wonders if maybe he wasn’t the only one to see her, maybe Steve too-

It begins. And Bucky knows it’s _to fall_ in the drift, but for once, there’s no falling at all, no drowning, no darkness. There’s just light of Steve’s memories, gently shaped pictures of _Steve’s mom singing Elvis Presley to a wooden spoon/ Steve’s dad making a kite/ Kite flying/ I want to fly one day Dad/ You will Steve/ Ice cracking/ You saved my life Steve/ I want to save lives/ Bucky crying we can share my mom if you want Bucky/ Uncle Sam wants YOU to fight Kaiju/ Fireworks blasting one to humanity zero to creepers from outer space/ Opportunity to contribute to the fight for our planets/ Dad where are you going?/ You shouldn’t be such a delusional idealist/ Mr Rogers promise me not to become perfect soldier but to stay a good man/ I promise_.

Bucky sees nothing of his own.

.

They don’t say a word. They lay together with tangled legs and fingers and hair. That night their dreams are the same.

.

They spend their free day in the forest looking for spring. They jump from a rock to a rock, trying to cross a river. They catch sunlight running through leaves.

“How did it felt to you?” Bucky asks because he knows Steve had it worse.

“Incomplete, in a way.”

Bucky asks nothing more.

.

Peggy kisses Steve’s cheek and he gives her a folder full of sketches.

“What was it, between you two?” Bucky asks when they go back to the Academy, they and maybe a dozen of other cadets.

“Nothing” says Steve and there is a painful sincerity in it.

.

“So, how was having Steve in your head?”

“Hello to you too, Becky, And it was more the other way round.”

“Ah, I see. So what, like puppies and rainbows?”

“Add stars and stripes and you’ll have it.”

Silence.

“You’re becoming pilots now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool. Pick me up in a Jaeger one day and maybe I’ll forgive you.”

.

They start training with real Jaegers. First, walking, basic movements. Later, combats between each other. They’re drifting, drifting, drifting. It’s more intense than anything Bucky has ever experienced. Sometimes he forgets who he is, a bit, and which memories are his. He doesn’t mind, because if it’s not him, it’s Steve. And having Steve lingering on his mind doesn’t seem to be such a bad thing. The only thing that concerns him is if Steve would feel the same way about it, if Bucky allowed this all to be exposed.

.

“I think I worry about him” Ms Quintana smiles.

“I understand you, but believe me that there’s nothing you should worry about. Cadet Rogers is strong, one of the strongest men I’ve ever met and stronger than you’d think.”

“But-“ Bucky doesn’t know what exactly. Just, _but_.

“You have to let him be. You aren’t his shield anymore.”

“Then what am I?”

.

Maybe Steve should drift with Peggy Carter who never raised her voice, and that’s only because she didn’t need to. Her mind wouldn’t hurt people.

.

Days fly into white-grey Alaska’s sky. Bucky and Steve lose all combats but one.

.

“Stop protecting him” Ms Quintana says. “You are keeping him away and it hurts both of you. Your efficiency suffers from it. How are you going to do anything, Barnes, anything at all, if you can’t trust him enough?”

“I do trust him!”

“Then let him try and bear it. Let him _in_.”

.

Bucky throws rocks into a white river and watches them sink. He’d never say out loud he has anything against drifting with Steve, because whom if not him he’d show himself so bare? They have come so far, for what? For Bucky to be scared, to be – ashamed? _Oh, fuck it_.

.

They go in as first ones that day. Sun has just risen; sky is red-pink and words freeze in their mouth, so they’re silent. Steve gives Bucky a very blue glance, concerned, probably. What, is he shivering, or something? That would be a bit humiliating, even in the light of previous weeks.

“Rogers, Barnes, you ready?”  Phillips asks. It’s usually Steve to say ‘Absolutely, Sir’ or something in that style, buzzing with righteousness and courage.

“More or less” Bucky answers this time. And then, then it starts.

_Bucky’s mom lays on a bed her skin is white and Bucky counts blue veins on her wrists/ This is your sister say hello Bucky/ Water is black and there’s nothing until suddenly it’s hands and light and Steve/ There’s an underscore between two dates and Bucky can’t understand how they fitted all of mom there/ I bleed more often than not/ I hate those guys who beat up Steve when I hit them I want to kill them/ Dad is gone/ There are nightmares they are always/ Ocean breaks in a half and I break into pieces/ Steve’s further than he was/ Gin Inara Adam Niamh dozens of strangers who are cowards like him and drink their disgust in/ Not all of us are heroes/ I’m not a hero I can’t I don’t know how/ Chrysanthemums grow in my nose/ Rebecca Becky please cry for me because I forgot how to do that/ Alaska is Purgatory I’m purified I try how purified is equal with a saint/ I don’t deserve to be given such smile/ What am I if not his shield_

He’s a co-pilot. This time, they fly high.

.

“Did it hurt?” Bucky asks in the middle of night.

“Only a little.”

Steve embraces him and holds him tight, and Bucky feels his fractured bones to go back on their right place.

.

Last day of training, they win. Even the twins. Ms Quintana shakes their hands as they come and say goodbye.

“I believe in you” she says. 

.

 _Howling Eagle_ is her name. She’s a terrifying beauty and they love her dearly. When they fall into the drift (Bucky never says it like this, though. For him, it’s to _fly_ into the drift, always fly), she rips their breath out of lungs and melts them into something more than they could ever be alone. They enter a synergic flight. They create the union of two.

.

Bucky and Steve are nineteen when they go to war with monsters who emerged from the ocean. They are nineteen and sometimes they go to the cinema; they meet girls and boys who they like and nothing happens; they miss their homes but only sometimes, because for the most of time, they fight the monsters. It is difficult to believe in anything, in the end of days. Even, or especially, in yourself. They believe in each other, then. It’s enough.

Enough to pull out a drowning one from a black lake, enough to see an end to the Apocalypse.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that would be it. Comments are very nice, so feel encouraged to leave them.


End file.
